Amazon to Buy Popular Goodreads Website

[1]Online retail giant Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN[2]) is set to acquire online book site Goodreads.

Terms of the deal — which should close in the second quarter — were not disclosed by the company in the announcement, reports the Associated Press[3].

With the purchase, Amazon — and through them, the Kindle ebook reader — gains access to Goodreads’ content and user base. In a statement, Amazon said that it, “shares a passion for reinventing reading” with its new subsidiary. Goodreads currently has more than 16 million members that use the site as both a place to get book recommendations and to socialize with other bibliophiles.

Amazon is stressing that little will change with Goodreads. The business will remain in San Francisco and not be forced to relocate to Amazon’s Seattle location. “Goodreads is a place for all readers no matter what books they read or how they read them, and we expect to keep it that way,” said Amazon spokeswoman Kinley Pearsall.